


When Tragedy Strikes

by AllonsyMiddleEarth



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Doriath, F/M, Gen, Menegroth, eglador
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 17:38:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3905011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllonsyMiddleEarth/pseuds/AllonsyMiddleEarth





	1. Chapter 1

“Enter.” Melian tiredly lifted her chin off her hands at a knock on the counsel chambers. The Counsel was in the middle of a heated silence during a long debate with no right answers. There never seemed to be any where it concerned war against dark forces.  
  
“My Queen,” The elf who entered bowed slightly. “They have returned.”   
  
The entire counsel seemed to shed their exhaustion at once.   
  
“Prepare the healing rooms and supplies. I fear we will need them.” Melian said quickly, nodding to the servants by the door, who hurried away, and she and the rest of the counsel rushed to meet the company.   
  
“Elu!” She gasped, as soon as she saw him. The main part of the company had dismounted and was entering the halls, and many were badly injured. The King himself was upright only because Mablung heavily supported him, as Thingol limped from a bloody leg wound.   
  
Melian hurried to take over, slightly worried that Mablung, with his head gushing blood, wasn’t in the best shape to be helping anyone yet. She put Thingol’s good arm around her shoulders and faintly traced her fingers near the burns covering his other arm, which she recognized to be from a Balrog’s fiery whips.   
  
“It’s not so bad; it’s just broken. There were too many.” He said, partially gasping, wearily, as she led him to the healing areas as quickly as she could. “We slew many wolves and some orcs fled at our arrival, and we drove back a good many Balrogs when they arrived, but in the end we had to retreat; we had already lost too many, and I fear we are losing more.” He jerked his head back towards the rest of his men behind him.   
  
“Elmo is in bad shape…” Elu whispered suddenly, frantically. He was hardly conscious as she laid him down carefully, when they reached a room in the Halls of Healing, but when she began to examine his wounds closer he shook his head. “No, many are worse off than me by far…see to them first, please.”   
  
“My first duty is to my King.” She tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t hear of it.   
  
“Elmo. He is badly wounded, very badly, please, see to him first…he saved my life.” There were tears in his eyes that Melian knew had nothing to do with his own pain, so she reluctantly nodded, kissing his forehead and bidding another healer over for Thingol.   
  
Elmo was not hard to find. He was with the most desperately injured, spread out on mats or blankets in the large entry hall to the Halls of Healing, and Melian’s heart sank as soon as she saw him. He was covered with burns, much worse than Elu’s, and nearly his entire shirt was soaked in blood from a deep sword wound below his ribs. She knew without even reaching him that Estë herself could not have saved him.   
  
“Melian…” He choked out when she knelt at his side and she took his hand.   
  
“It will be all right, Elmo, we can get rid of the pain soon.” She whispered as calmly as she could manage.   
  
The other healers around him were at a loss, so she instructed them silently.  _We must_  g _et him something for the pain and clean him up. Have someone bring his family… he will have time for farewells, but it will have to be here, it is too dangerous to move him and there is not much time left._ They obeyed instantly and Melian took over for the maid putting pressure on Elmo’s wound to slow the blood flow, tying it off as best as she could without moving him, and turning to wipe off the worst of the blood and mud from his face and hands.  
  
“Tell Elwë I am sorry…” Elmo coughed and Melian moved closer. “Tell him he fought well; that he is a good King, he always has been, that he led us well. Give him my love, make sure he knows…” Elmo trailed off in another weak coughing fit, and Melian placed a hand on his forehead and breathed, trying to bring him what comfort she could through the healing powers she had learned at Estë’s side.   
  
“He knows.” She told him. “He says you saved his life- you fought bravely, Elmo. Thank you.” Her eyes were filling with tears now and she had trouble stopping them; only worsened by how much she knew Elu would wish he had been able to say a proper farewell.   
  
A healer arrived with a potion and Melian ever so carefully tilted it so he could drink. Its effect was instantaneous. 

“You’re right, the pain is fading.” Elmo sighed, almost inaudibly, as Melian ran a cool cloth over his head.

“It will not be so bad.” Melian tried to keep her voice steady as she kissed his forehead, and then turned as she saw his wife and sons enter the room.   
  
“Your family is here.” She told him gently.   
  
He tried to lift his head, but Melian held him down.   
  
“No, do not move.” She pressed the cloth against him again, and then let go of his hand so his wife could take it as his wife and sons knelt beside them. One of his sons had been fighting too but was not nearly so injured, just a bandaged wrist and some scrapes.   
  
Melian was unsure what to do now. Everyone present knew there was no healing left to be done, and she was not good with good-byes. She was new to the entire idea of them like this; new to living among beings that could be killed. The tears in her eyes had spilled over, and her family seemed to understand.   
  
“Go, see to others who need you, my Queen.” Elmo’s eldest son, Galadhon, murmured to her over the hoarsely whispered conversation the others were having, and she nodded gratefully and rose, leaving Elmo’s wife to tuck his blanket around him when he shivered.   
  
Attempting to dry her eyes, she turned to the rest. There was much work to be done, and others grievously injured who could still be saved if she worked fast, so she set to work on an elf two rows over with a bite of some sort that seemed to be poisoned.   
  
The rest was a blur of action. Everyone asked her questions on how to treat their most ill and she got to everyone as best as she could. They only lost four men, including Elmo, that night, out of the fifty or so who had been injured.   
  
Finally she found herself sitting by Elu, who had been patched up by another healer as his wounds were straightforward, and now she was too tired to properly grieve for Elmo and the others. Thingol, as King, had a private room in the healing wing. He could have been moved to their own chambers, he was well enough, but Melian had wanted to stay with him and was also needed here in case any emergencies came up with anyone else.  
  
“Melian?” His voice when he woke up sounded stronger than it had when he had been brought in.  
  
“I am here.” She had his hands in hers in an instant, careful of his wounded arm.   
  
“Elmo… how is he?” Elu’s eyes searched hers and, again, Melian couldn’t keep them from filling with tears. She hadn’t wanted to tell him so soon, but of course he would ask.   
  
“He…Elu he,” She closed her eyes and paused for a quick shaky breath, “he didn’t make it, I am sorry.”   
  
“No…” Elu tried to sit up, but Melian had anticipated it and was already holding him down. “I have to see him, it cannot be too late!”   
  
“It is, Elu, I am so sorry.” She whispered.   
  
“No…let me see him.” He struggled, but she was strong and he, currently, was not.  
  
“He told me to give you his love, and that you did well, and…” She broke off to hide a sob. She would recount Elmo’s last words to her later, she couldn’t now.  
  
“He saved me. He shouldn’t have.” Elu stared straight upward and spoke in a flat voice as tears made their way down the sides of his face. “I should have saved him instead. He was my younger brother, I was supposed to take care of him…” He closed his eyes against the tears, and Melian slid onto to the bed with him and hugged him as best as she could with his injuries.   
  
“There was nothing you could have done differently.” She tried to tell him, but she knew her words wouldn’t reach him. He put his good arm around her, and neither could bring themselves to say anything more.  
  
“His family?” Elu asked, after a long silence had passed.  
  
“Coping, as they can.” She answered. “They were there to say good-bye. Except for the little ones. Celeborn and Galathil couldn’t have seen what was happening in here, not yet. Lúthien is with them, I hear. We will see them all in the morning.”   
  
“How are the rest of the men?” He asked.   
  
Melian listed those they had lost and then launched into a description of how the other majorly injured were doing; who would make it through the night, who was still in danger and how they could save each, before she realized he wasn’t listening.   
  
“You should rest. You need it.” She told him softly.   
  
“I can not… not after…”  
  
Melian started humming softly, stroking his hair, knowing that her song’s power would lull him to sleep quickly, and that he needed it, that it was better than letting him lie awake to imagine how he could have done things differently when she knew there was no point to that. Though that knowledge wouldn’t stop her from doing the same all night as she lay awake.  
  
“Don’t do that.” He protested when he realized what she was doing, but he was half gone already.   
  
“Sorry.” She murmured with a half smile when he was asleep, and she curled closer against his warmth, wishing her spells could put herself to sleep, too.


	2. Chapter 2

“We should go see Lúthien.” Melian had told him early the next morning.   
  
She was in her cousins’ chambers, with Celeborn and Galathil, sitting on Celeborn’s bed, and none of them looked as if they had slept at all.   
  
“Ada!” Lúthien cried when he and Melian entered the dark chambers, and Elu lifted her in his arms, ignoring the pain in his bad arm when she clung to him. Elu sat on the bed with her in his lap and opened his arms to Celeborn, too, who fell into his embrace, though he was trying to look brave.   
  
They stayed like that for a long time, while Elu had no idea what to say to any of them. Especially not Elmo’s grandchildren. They were still so young, they might not even remember later how Elmo had adored them so much…  
  
“He’s really gone?” Galathil asked from the corner of the room, and Elu looked to Melian where she stood by the door, but she gave no answer, only cast her eyes down.   
  
“He really is.” Elu managed to say, almost evenly.  
  
“Adar told us.” Galathil said. “But I didn’t want to believe him.”   
  
“Nor did I.” Elu said, and Galathil turned away from him.   
  
“What are the Halls of Mandos like?” Galathil asked Melian.   
  
“I… I have never seen them.” Melian moved lightly across the room and sat next to Luthien, stroking her hair. “But I know Námo, and Vairë, and all their Maiar take very good care of everyone there. They need not want for anything, and Vaire weaves tapestries to decorate all the walls.”   
  
It wasn’t comforting, but it was all there was to say.  
  
“Why do the dead go there?” Celeborn asked Melian.   
  
“To heal, to recover from the strain of living and dying, before being able to live in Valinor again.” There was more to it, she was sure, but death wasn’t Melian’s area. She had helped Vána and Yavanna to create life, she had helped Estë to heal it… she didn’t really know what happened when it ended.   
  
“But he was just here  _yesterday.”_  Celeborn’s voice broke. “How can he need to recover for so long?”   
  
“I do not know.” Melian told him, desperately trying to think of something to make it all make sense, wondering what Eru would say, or why she couldn’t help more. “I am sorry…”   
  
Elu shook his head and took her hand in his. ‘You are helping,’ he told her silently, but she didn’t believe him.

“What is death?” Galathil asked, tears finally showing in his eyes. “I don’t understand…”   
  
 _How could he,_  Melian thought. Neither did she, and she was ageless. Galathil was barely more than a small child.  
  
“He loved you, so, so much.” Elu told them, his voice breaking.   
  
“I miss him.” Celeborn said, and Lúthien hugged him, the both of them crying.  
  
“So do I.” Elu whispered hoarsely.  _So will all of Beleriand._  
  
Elu tried to picture his brother’s face, remembering his laughter when he played with his grandsons, his joy when Elu had returned with Melian after his disappearance. Elmo had been King in Elu’s absence, Elmo could have resented Elu for taking that away by returning, but never once had he been anything other than humble and gracious in welcoming Elu in his return, and Elmo had searched for him all that time…   
  
Melian’s cool hand brushed his, and Elu could hardly hold back the strangled sob that threatened to escape his throat.   
  
 _He was a better man than I ever was._ Elu told her silently.  _I should have protected him… it should have been me._  
  
Melian’s eyes glistened with tears when she shook her head, but even his wife, with all her Maia wisdom, could not seem to find words to help him.

The five of them settled into silence, until Melian gently started humming, lulling Luthien and Celeborn to sleep. Elu picked up Luthien to carry her to her own bed, and they left Celeborn and Galathil with their own parents.   
  
“I can’t rule without him here, I can’t do this Melian.” Elu said to her when they were alone again. “Not just the children, but our whole kingdom will be looking to us for strength, and I have none. None at all.”   
  
“You are not alone.” Melian offered, and he pulled her closer against him with his good arm, letting his tears fall and trying to focus on the sweet scent of flowers that clung to her hair.   
  
“No.” Elu finally agreed, then sighed. “None of us are. But my armies are smaller every day that we fight… how can we hold back this darkness, Melian? I can’t keep sending out soldiers when there is no hope of ending this fight, nor can we abandon our borders, or all sorts of foul things might come in.”

“I do not know the answer.” She whispered apologetically, and Elu instantly felt worse, if that were possible; he didn’t want to make Melian more worried.   
  
“I do not expect you to, meleth. I am only thinking aloud.”   
  
“I should be able to help, I need to be able to help.”   
  
“You do.” Elu kissed her brow. “You give more wise counsels than we could ever hope for, you give us all strength. Elmo… Elmo always said so himself.”   
  
Melian bowed her head. “I am glad he thought so.”   
  
“We all do.” He told her, but it was only a small smile she gave him before looking away again.


End file.
